


Alternate Epilogue

by owlaholic68



Series: Try Again [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 2
Genre: Alternate Epilogue, Blood and Injury, Confusion, Disabled Character, Hallucinations, Memory Alteration, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 10:58:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12107256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlaholic68/pseuds/owlaholic68
Summary: Lenny remembers.





	Alternate Epilogue

At first, Lenny doesn’t notice that anything has changed.

He helps Carla settle the Arroyo villagers and Vault 13 refugees in the ruins of the village. Some of the villagers are in dire need of medical attention, keeping him busy in the makeshift clinic he’s set up. He does a full check-up on each and every inhabitant, cataloguing their records and helping with their many minor illnesses and injuries, both physical and mental. It reminds him of his own medical practice so long ago, back when clean water was a given, but peace was not.

“Say ‘Ah’,” he instructs, peering into the mouth of a toddler.

“Aahhhhh…” the child drones, opening his mouth wide. Lenny inspects his teeth, noting where a few have fallen out. He’s no dentist, but his knowledge of basic dental health is passable.

“Good,” he marks something on the clipboard he’s holding. He turns to the parent, one of Carla’s many cousins, who’s sitting on the ground sharpening a knife. “He’s doing w-well. One of his new teeth looks like it might be coming in c-crooked, but there’s not much we c-can do about that. Thanks for bringing h-him in.” The parent stands up and beckons to the child, who scampers out of the clinic behind them. Lenny shuffles some papers and sorts them into their proper boxes.

Lenny hears the tent flap open behind him, and turns at the sound of light footsteps. He sees Carla.

She’s in her old vault suit, a leather jacket thrown on top, a spear on her back, her hair long. Two arms, and she smiles when she looks at him, but he doesn’t know her. Most people scream when they see ghouls, and that smile had always puzzled him. Their first meeting in Harold’s office.

Then Lenny blinks, and he’s back to the present, _this_ Carla in front of him. But something sticks in the back of his head, a nagging out-of-place thought: _She **did** scream when she first saw me. Didn’t she? Or did she smile? _He briefly frowns but brushes the confusion away as a symptom of his old age. He smiles and waves at her, his mood immediately brightening. She’s dressed lightly today, just a simple grey dress, perfect in the summer heat. She holds out a hand. An invitation to go somewhere. Little need to talk between the two of them anymore, they know each other so well. It’s hard to believe that they’ve known each other for less than a year.

Something turns in his stomach at that, like a ‘wrong’ buzzer on an old-world game show, a red light on his old car’s dashboard. But he ignores it and focuses on what’s in front of him.

He raises a finger ( _one moment_ ), and quickly finishes filing his papers. She patiently waits, fingers drumming against her thigh, until he turns to her and takes her hand. They walk out together hand in hand, and it feels so _right_ , Lenny forgets about his weird feelings. For now.

* * *

“And the representative said w-we’d be safe in the V-Vault,” Lenny sits on a bench by the training area, telling a story about the day the bombs fell.

“Vault 12, if I recall,” Carla mutters. “Twenty-three, twenty-four,” she completes another one-armed push-up. Her Pip-Boy is on the ground in front of her face.

“But w-we didn’t know that something was w-wrong with the door,” Lenny rubs the side of his head, the rising sun starting to give him a headache. “Then-”

He’s sitting in the passenger seat of the Highwayman. “-we started g-getting sick.” Vic is sitting behind him, fiddling with a small piece of equipment.

“From what?” Not-Carla asks, one hand on the wheel, the other combing through her long hair. A dog barks. There’s an unfamiliar mutt sitting on the backseat next to Vic. But Lenny knows this dog: Dogmeat, of course.

“The r-radiation,” Lenny responds. _We’ve never traveled with a dog._ In his vision, his odd waking dream, he looks ahead and sees a pillar of smoke.

Then _this_ Carla’s repeating his name to get his attention.

“What?” he frowns and rubs his head again. “Sorry, j-just a headache. So, as I w-was saying, we started g-getting sick.” _Have I told her this story before? I didn’t think I’d ever told anyone about this._

Carla hums. He notices that her eyes are closed. “From the radiation?” She opens her eyes and continues mouthing numbers.

“H-Have I told you this s-story before?” Lenny doesn’t feel right. Maybe it’s just the heat, but light is blossoming behind his eyes, and it feels like something sick is rising in his throat. _I’ve never told her this story before._ He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. _I’ve told this story dozens of times._

Carla is standing in front of him, worriedly putting a hand across his forehead. She frowns, an unsure frown, which means he’s warm. He sighs and stands up, then rubs his throat. _Need a glass of water._ She nods. She’s frowning and her hand on his cheek is trembling.

* * *

Carla’s the one who has nightmares, not him. He’s always there when she wakes up screaming, crying, or frozen stiff, her fingers almost tearing apart her pillow. She rarely gets a full night’s sleep anymore. Ghouls don’t need to sleep, so he gets up and makes her a cup of tea. He doesn’t have nightmares. He used to not have nightmares.

Carla’s dying in his arms, coughing up blood. He’s holding her hand and crying, screaming. She asks him something. Her eyes close. Her eyes slowly re-open and she asks him again, but he can’t hear her. He shakes her and begs her not to leave him alone, screams at the top of his weak lungs, searches every pocket for a Stimpack, healing powder, _anything_ while she slumps, limp, in his lap. Her heartbeat under his shaking hands is fading, slowing until she lies in his arms with eyes glassy and blood still dripping from her parted lips. She’s _gone_. Lenny wails and everything fades to black. The blackness feels familiar.

He jolts awake. Marcus is shaking him and yelling, Carla half-awake and confused at his side. Marcus, seeing him open his eyes, helps him sit up, then gives him some space.

“W-Wha-” Lenny coughs, his throat sore. Marcus stomps out of the room, presumably to get him a glass of water. He quietly coughs again. Carla’s awake now and sitting up, her dark eyes straining in the dark, intently focused on his face. She reaches up and wipes her hand across his cheek. Lenny realizes he’s crying. _What a crybaby_ , his parents had always said, bemoaning their son’s tendency to get teary-eyed at the slightest thing.

“Len,” Carla whispers. She holds out her arm. He chokes out a sob and scoots closer, wrapping both arms around her waist and burying his head in her shoulder. It’s what she does sometimes when she wakes up. Sometimes, though, she just goes out to the common area of their tent and just _looks_ at someone. He’ll find her curled up in front of Marcus, just staring while the super mutant sleeps.

Carla’s so warm and alive, and he holds onto that. Her hand on his back helps chase away his dream (his _dream_ , nothing more), and she understands. She always understands, always knows him so well.

* * *

The dreams (he refuses to believe they’re anything else) are becoming more frequent. The hallucinations, the flashbacks to things that _didn’t_ happen, they’re starting to worry Lenny. He comes to a conclusion.

He’s going feral.

Not much was known about the process of going feral, but some symptoms were known: memory loss, confusion, slowly losing sanity. It was just going to get worse until he became dangerous, until he killed someone. What if he hurt Carla?

He’s dreaming. Carla falls down the stairs in front of him, and he can’t catch her. Her body skids to a stop, her legs crumpled on the bottom step, her head on the concrete. He slides to his knees at her side, slipping on the blood pooling underneath her. He pulls a Stimpack from his bag, injects it into her neck. He’s yelling for someone to help, someone to come, anyone, _please_. He picks up her head and almost throws up at the angle her neck’s twisted at. God, she’s dying, _again_ , and he can’t save her.

_Again?_

He’s sitting on the hood of the Highwayman. He’s sitting in the passenger seat with his seatbelt on while Carla presses too hard on the gas pedal and curses, almost hitting the junkyard gate. He’s sitting in the passenger seat while Carla hesitantly shifts into reverse. “You know h-how to drive this?” he asks. “Kinda?” She shrugs and almost hits the gate. He’s sitting in the passenger seat while Carla confidently pulls out of the Den junkyard and rolls down the windows. “W-Wow. Where’d you learn h-how to drive?” Carla laughs and keeps her eyes on the road, one hand lazily resting on the center console. “Oh, you know, just around. Always been good with machines.”

He remembers asking her that same question again and again, her answer always the same. Sometimes Sulik is there. Sometimes there’s a loud dog in the backseat. He’s never traveled with a dog. It doesn’t make any sense. It makes too much sense.

He’s going feral.

* * *

A dog wanders into Arroyo one day. Carla runs forward to greet it. She doesn’t see Lenny stumble, knees suddenly weak.

“Dogmeat,” he whispers. Goris shoots him an odd glance, but Carla doesn’t notice. She simply pats the stray and coos its name in a soft voice. It’s Dogmeat, of course. He wishes it wasn’t, wishes he was wrong. Lenny turns on his heel and runs, bursting into their new adobe house and slamming the door shut behind him.

He collapses on their bed and curls up with his head between his knees. His brain is pounding, bursting through his skull. Dogmeat. He doesn’t know that dog. He’s never travelled with a dog. He gasps and coughs, lungs tight and burning, his chest heaving. Dogmeat. Dogmeat.

Lenny groans and curls his fingers into his skull. If only he could tear out this nonsense, this confusion. _We’d stopped finding Dogmeat sometime after Marcus joined us._ He shuts his eyes even tighter and tries to take a deep breath, his ragged gasps rattling in his lungs. _He was probably scared away by the Super Mutant. I shouldn’t remember Dogmeat. No one else does._ Lenny starts to let himself understand, and his head starts to ache a little less. _If I’m going crazy, I might as well just accept it._

He uncurls and rubs his eyes. _Carla remembers Dogmeat._ The pounding in his skull resurges, and he puts his hands over his ears. _I need to leave. I need to stop thinking about this. I’m going to snap and go feral and nobody will be able to stop me from killing her, from killing everyone._ He takes a deep breath. _I need to leave. I can’t do this anymore._

* * *

Carla leans against his shoulder and smiles up at him. He smiles back. He’s going to throw up, going to pass out from the echoes layering themselves over her: Carla with long hair, Carla with two arms, Carla in her vault suit, Carla crying herself to sleep, Carla with eyes closed and blood staining her lips.

There’s a few memories, dreams, hallucinations, that cut themselves off, and he tries not to think about those ones. He tries not to think about any of them, but there’s a few where it just…ends. One moment, he’s raising his gun to shoot, then there’s a flash of light and it’s over. He’s standing in front of the Hubologist’s bunker, Goris idly scratching his claws against the ground, then it fades to black. Countless times where Carla’s already left for the Oil Rig, and they wait, and wait, and sooner or later it ends.

He’s waking up earlier and earlier. One day he wakes, dresses, and is has the passenger door of the Highwayman open before he realizes. He stops sleeping, lying awake listening to Carla dream. She twists and cries and he wonders if he dies in her dreams as much as she does in his.

* * *

Carla uses a .223 pistol. Carla uses a Mega powerfist. Carla used to use other guns, other weapons, other armor. Carla used grenades one time. Carla used to use a 10mm pistol.

Carla teaches the villagers how to use weapons. She corrects shaky grips on salvaged rifles, straightens sloppy posture, dispenses wisdom gained from years (and years and decades and decades) of experience. Lenny watches. She demonstrates how to throw a punch. Lenny watches.

She picks up a 10mm pistol. Lenny stands up.

Carla’s holding the gun to her own head, crying. She’s starting to pull the trigger. Lenny smells smoke. Vic holds her arm down, but Vic’s not here this time.

“Please, C-Carla,” Lenny’s pleading, his hands around her own. Carla’s looking at him, eyes wide and confused. She’s shaking. She’s shaking her head. Lenny repeats her name over and over and pulls the gun from her hand. She lets him.

She doesn’t let him. She raises the gun and shoots Vic. Lenny’s sobbing. She’s going to die again. He’s going to die again. He didn’t understand then, he still doesn’t understand now. It wasn’t supposed to end like this, they were supposed to _make it_ this time.

They _did_ make it. Carla lets him take the gun from her hand. He throws it to the ground and grabs her shoulders. She tries to back away, but he doesn’t let her. People are shouting, calling for Marcus, or Sulik, or anyone to help. People think he’s going feral. They’re right.

“Len,” Carla is shaking her head and shaking and squirming, her hand ineffectually trying to pry his bony fingers from her shoulder. “Len, let go. Let go of me!” He can’t. How else is he supposed to know she’s really there? He tightens his grip just to _feel_. Carla winces. “Len, stop it, you’re hurting me!” her voice is high and she’s so scared, so scared, he needs to keep her close. Not to protect her, that was never his style. It was always Carla who did the protecting, he was just a doctor. No, he needs to stay close in case he loses her again. She’s only nineteen. She’s only twenty-one.

“I’m sorry, Len,” Carla cries, and rears back her fist.

The punch wakes him up, a harsh sting that pushes him back, loosens his grip just enough for Carla to slip out and stumble back. It hurts, but not as much as it could if she hadn’t been partially restrained. What hurts more is the look of horror on her face. She’s standing so far away, afraid of this now-feral ghoul in front of her. _And she should be_.

Marcus and Goris are running up now, and Carla takes a hesitant step forward, her hand pleadingly held in front of her. Every line of her body is cautious, calming, placating. She’s trying to get him to sit down, to calm down.

He turns and bolts. Pushes past the crowd of people surrounding them, drawn by the commotion, and he runs towards the edge of the village. _I finally snapped. I’m dangerous. Ironic._ He almost makes it to the farmland, the very outskirts of town, before he realizes that someone’s following. Sandals slapping against dirt. She’s following.

“Leave me alone,” he turns and snarls, even his voice turning feral now, all traces of a stutter gone. “Go away.”

She’s holding the Pip-Boy in her hand, breathing heavily, eyes wild. “Len, please. What’s wrong?”

He just growls and turns away. Isn’t it _obvious_?

“Don’t leave, please!” She begs, voice cracking, and she steps forward. He flinches away. “Are you sick? Tell me what’s wrong, we can _help_ you.”

That’s the problem. She’s _always_ helped, even when it made no sense. But now, he remembers countless times, countless first meetings where she already had the part to fix the power plant, countless times that she bought mine purifier parts from Renesco ‘on a whim’.

His skull starts pounding like it always does when he remembers, and he groans and holds the side of his head. “I’m turning feral,” he groans again and shuts his eyes. He doesn’t want to see her, afraid that he’ll see another Carla. “I’m going _crazy_ , C-Carla. I’m r-remembering things that _didn’t_ happen. I’m feral, C-Carla, and I have to leave.”

“What?” Carla shakes her head from side to side. She takes a step back, then hesitates and steps forward. “You’re _remembering_? How?” She coughs. This much talking, a full day of talking plus _this_ , is taking its toll. “Len,” she sighs, her voice dropping to a whisper, “you’re not going crazy. I remember too.”

He forces himself to look at her. There’s no echoes right now. It’s just her, and she looks sad. She looks old. _She is old. She is only twenty-one._ “You’re saying that a-all that actually h-happened?” Carla had really repeated the same year over and over again? How could that even be true? But if it was true, that means that they’d spent decades together, her always alone in her struggle. He could _trust_ her.

“Len, you weren’t supposed to remember. It was just supposed to me that had to live with what I’d done,” she has tears welling up in her eyes, and he automatically steps closer. She lets him. A trust born of a hundred years. “I promise, it’s real.”

“It’s c-confusing,” he whines, a thousand memories ( _memories_ , he reminds himself) bursting behind his eyes. Carla steps closer and reaches out. She touches his cheek and some of the memories slip back into his brain, the pain lessening just from her presence.

“I know. Let me help.”

He lets her.

* * *

It’s better now with two of them.

Carla’s learned to tell when he starts seeing layers of things, when his eyes unfocus at the sight of Dogmeat, or Marcus, or the village. She reaches out and whispers things so only he can hear, touches his shoulder to bring him back.

He can pull her out of nightmares, can remind her without words that she had made it. They had made it. He recognizes some things that she screams about, hears echoes of memories. Some things he doesn’t know, so she tells him, haltingly, because she’s never been able to tell anyone. She tells him stories about those hundred cycles, puts numbers and order to the mess in his head. She never had to forget, she never had to re-remember.

It’s better now.

**Author's Note:**

> This was an idea that I was toying around with while writing the actual epilogue, but never felt like it fit.   
> My original thought was that someone else remembering would make things easier, but instead??? I somehow made Lenny more fucked-up than Carla? Because at least Carla didn't have to go through the process of remembering everything.


End file.
